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A former quantitative trading chief at Deutsche Bank is hoping to raise as much as $250 million for a managed futures hedge fund that he will begin marketing in earnest this year.

Philippe Azoulay, who spent six years in charge of all the quantitative aspects of Deutsche Bank’s alternative and fund solution group, secured $50 million in seed funding from Deutsche Bank for his hedge fund start-up, 80 Capital, a year ago.

He had been running Helium, a managed futures strategy, internally at Deutsche Bank since February 2012.

Azoulay is now planning to market the fund globally and hopes to grow assets from $50 million to about $250 million in the next 12 months, according to a person close to the firm. At this point it may "soft close" to new money, the person said.

Managed futures strategies use complex computer algorithms to capture trends in global markets. The Newedge CTA index gained 0.72% last year, following losses of 2.87% in 2012 and 4.45% in 2011. Managers have suffered from a lack of clear trends and unpredictable central bank intervention, which has made markets jittery and prone to big swings.

The Helium strategy, which trades futures on fixed income, equity indices, currencies and commodities, has outperformed the peer group.

Azoulay started trading the Helium strategy on Deutsche Bank’s books in February 2012. It gained 4.43% in the remaining 11 months of that year, according to a fund presentation seen by Financial News. He set up 80 Capital later in 2012, and relaunched the Helium strategy in February 2013 with Deutsche Bank’s $50 million seed investment. The Helium strategy gained 6.15% in the remainder of 2013, the presentation shows.

At Deutsche Bank, Azoulay reported to Stephane Farouze, who was head of alternatives and fund solutions. As well as his managerial and structuring role within the group, Azoulay developed systematic trading strategies for Deutsche Bank’s $30 billion alternative book and ran some proprietary capital.

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In 2012, Deutsche Bank moved the alternative and fund solution group from the corporate banking and securities division into its asset and wealth management division. Michele Faissola, the long-term head of rates and commodities, moved over to lead the newly-integrated division. The Helium strategy also sits on dbalternatives and dbSelect, Deutsche Bank’s two managed account platforms.

Before Deutsche Bank, Azoulay worked at Calyon in New York where he was in charge of trading, structuring and origination for fund derivatives in the US. He began his career at Paris-based quantitative hedge fund Capital Fund Management.

--write to hagnew@efinancialnews.com and follow on Twitter @HarrietAgnew Harriet Agnew